"DEFENDER"
[continued...]
The proprietor huffed, looked away and said, "Yes. You leave, you don't like it." Conrad's vocal cords tensed. "How the hell can you tell me to get out?" Conrad yelled. Hurling a few verisimilitudes of outrage, he background processed that the proprietor looked vaguely Middle Eastern, perhaps South Asian, and had a slight accent. "I was born here," Conrad proclaimed. "My Great Grandfather was born here, and worked and paid taxes so that someone like you could come here and open a store." The proprietor adjusted his thick glasses, "I don't care. You can leave!" Conrad's mouth flapped silently in outrage for a few seconds as he tried to work the logic of this episode out in his mind's eye. Then he said, "You're doing this 'cause I'm Black, right?!" At this, the proprietor huffed even more mightily. Conrad said, "How dare you come to this, my country, and judge me by my appearance!" Conrad quickly dug into his pocket, at this the proprietor leaned toward something under the counter. Conrad produced his bill fold. "See this?" he screamed, "THIS, is a credit card. And, oh looky, here's another one!" The proprietor looked disdainfully down at the plastic on his counter. "I don't have a criminal record, I don't have AIDS, and the only drug I use comes with cream and sugar you asshole!" Conrad snatched the cards up and said, "I can't believe you, of all people, would try and discriminate against me because of the color of my skin!" The proprietor jutted his hand under the counter and pushed an unseen apparatus. The front door of the tiny bodega clicked efficiently. Locked. The proprietor snatched his glasses off and uttered at the top of his lungs, "Twnsa mvxes! Caox hvbo, dhji! You know nothing!" Conrad, confused, said, "What...?" The proprietor leaned his arms on the counter, and looked deeply into Conrad eyes. "Qrtex zw...," the proprietor looked down and shook his head in exasperation, "You think you know oppression and discrimination. You know nothing of this. I came to this place one hundred and nineteen years ago. My people where scattered across the galaxy after the Hxzn, I mean Haxon, exterminated most of my planet's population." Conrad rolled his eyes. "You don't believe, eh?" The proprietor rolled up his sleeves and wiggled an extra set of tiny, baby-like, fingers on his forearms. Conrad's eyes bugged into saucers. "I know. You still don't believe, no?" The proprietor lifted his arm, and with a baby index finger dug into his eye socket and pulled a thin film away, revealing what appeared to be eyes that could only come from the lizard family. "My real name, you could never pronounce, so here your people call me Sam." Conrad's mouth hung open. "Yes, I tell truth. You know nothing. Until your entire planet has been burned alive, leaving only few people to escape. YOU no tell ME about discrimination." Conrad's shock morphed into realization. "My people come here. And give new information, technology, to your government. But, no respect!" At this, Sam slammed his hand down on the counter in anger. "But one day, our oppression end. My people come back to respect. You, Black, White, I don't care! You will all know, MY people!" Conrad deftly hopped over the counter, grabbing a Bic model 325c blue pen on the way, and stabbed Sam in cheek. And in the chest, and in the throat, and in the stomach. Each wound gushing what seemed like compressed air, instead of green ooze, as Conrad half expected. The series of feverish thrusts seemed to last thirty minutes to Conrad as his arm fatigued, but in fact, it lasted only last thirty seconds. Slowly, as a sense of reality began seeping back in on the edges of his focus, Conrad heard the front door crash in amid a cacophony of sirens and bellows coming his way. Still kneeling over the now motionless body of Sam, Conrad gently raised his hands toward the ceiling, his blue ink stained hand involuntarily dropping the Bic. As the officers converged and yanked him off the lifeless body, one reading him his rights, the other roughly cuffing his listless hands, Conrad thought: I know nothing...!
Takako Yoshida lives and works from his home studio in New York City's East Village as a multi-media programmer and designer. He also plays what he calls "space rock" in his spare time. |
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